Motor City Comic Con After Action Report

May 22, 2009 on 9:47 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Ok, so I just got back from Motor City, or Detroit Rock City as any self respecting KISS fan would call it. Of course, the convention is actually held in Novi, Michigan, but it’s still close enough that it can be considered a Detroit Convention.

Overall, it was a great event for me because it was the first time I got to greet people as the “the guy running Wizard World Philly”. While there are a ton of people working on the show in so many capacities here at Wizard, I know for a fact that if the show fails miserably, I take all the blame. Of course if it succeeds, it only did so thanks to the team work of all the individuals who took part in it. But if it all goes to hell, it was Spat’s fault.

So with that kind of confidence boost behind me, I got to go around the convention and meet the artists, media guests, agents and vendors who will be coming to future Wizard World shows.

Obviously, I can’t sit here and name everyone, and if you’re not mentioned, it’s not because you didn’t mean a lot to me, it’s just that I only have so many letters I can type here before Wizard starts charging me. Bandwidth is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive, and anyone who works in the Wizard offices on a wireless laptop knows that for some unexplained reason, our internet shuts off at exactly 4:55 pm EVERY SINGLE DAY. No one can figure out why. But it does. I personally use it as a way to tell when it’s time for everyone else to start packing up to go home. You’ll notice that I say, “everyone else”. Because I seem to be one of the last people to ever leave here at night. In fact, it’s 9:30pm on Friday night of a Holiday weekend, and I’m here writing this Blog.

Technically, I came back to the office after dinner just to write it here because I can’t remember my Blog password to log in and do this at home, but I think it should still count as “staying late at work”.

Anyway, back to the con! Key amongst the people I got to meet at the show – Billy Tucci! He came up with an idea for a new Shi exclusive for the Philly show! Details to come soon! He also came up with some great ideas for our upcoming NY show, but we’ll get to that later.

Mark Sparacio! He also got inspired and came up with ANOTHER exclusive for Philly, which I hope to unveil on Tuesday.

Philly is starting to really heat up with exclusives!

Brian Pulido, who will be bringing Lady Death to Chicago with a vengeance!

Primo, who asked for a better booth at Wizard, and described himself as the Cher of our generation. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention after seeing some close-up drawings of Lady Death.

And Eric Mullarky who showed off his Motor City exclusive comics and hinted at the upcoming ones for Philly and Chicago.

I also got to talk to Mark Texeira, Dirk Strangely, Russ Heath, Tommy Castillo and a host of other creators, artists and writers before even making it to the Autograph area.

Once in the autograph area, I got the warmest welcome possible! Mr. Hogan (Col. Tigh of Battlestar Galactica) saw me walking by, wrote “Go Frak Yourself” in giant letters on one of his photos, signed it, crumpled it up, and threw it at my head.

Very odd.

I couldn’t figure out why he would do something like that until I looked through some of the pics on my digital camera. Once I saw the pic of he and I, it all came flooding back to me…

I met Mr. Hogan in the hotel lobby the night before. I asked to take a picture with him, and handed my camera off to someone else to take it for me.

He said, “Let’s make this a good one, eh?”, and I remember commenting that he sounded more Canadian than Australian. He asked why he would sound Australian, and I said, “Because you’re Crocodile Dundee. Paul Hogan.”